football game against Northwest Missouri State University was established in 1930 when Northwest president Uel W. Lamkin sent Fair a polished hickory stick from the farm where the former president Eugene Fair was born. The "Hickory Stick" was contested annually until 2013, when Truman and Northwest Missouri began competing in different athletic conferences.
A tradition has arisen in which students attach wads of gum to a designated tree known as the "Gum Tree." It is believed that a ban on gum chewing in class started a tradition of discarding gum inside a hollow suit of armor sometime in the 1920s, and that eventually this was replaced by the Gum Tree. Students leave their gum on the tree to bring them good luck on exams.
== Athletics ==
Truman is a member of NCAA Division II and plays in the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC), joining the conference in 2013 after having been a member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) since that league's creation in 1912. Because the GLVC …
